I'll take the cooks job... ya may never know what yer eatin.. but damn if it doesn't taste like beer-basted chicken......

R.I.P. Chenlambec 6-23-04 to 8.9.05. Rogue Wookie,Smuggler, and Go To Wookie for Radical Limb Removal."I was born a smuggler, and I died a smuggler, and only the spicefiends mourned my passing."The Inimitable Capt. Baobab

Keep in mind, once a dev finishes a project like that, he checks it in. It goes into our version control software ... and we have little control over when it will get to you. Sometimes the developer isn't even 100% sure which publish his change will be in: the next one, or the one after that?

At that point, it's in for an upcoming publish with a lot of other stuff. Any of that "other stuff" could delay the publish. Or we could hear back from QA, "We don't have time to test that properly, so let's hold it for the next publish and give ourselves time to test all this other stuff." Or this could delay the publish itself. Or we could discover other issues with it in testing that cause us to sit on it for another publish, and so on. Really, anything could happen.

Most of the time, nothing bad happens, we haven't scheduled anything that requires more QA time than QA can accommodate, and what we check-in arrives on Live servers when it's supposed to. But this is just not something we can promise, so we try not to do that.

This particular torpedo has left the tube, but we can't say when precisely it will make contact with the USS Smuggler.

"Soon".

I normally don't post anything unless it is 100% solid because things change daily around here. I will break this rule and see how well you do with a tentative answer.

Currently slated for Publish 19 is some slicing loving. We are hoping to get a document posted to "In Dev" this week for you all to view. QA still needs to bang away at the slicing changes which could push it out another publish or two.

I normally don't post anything unless it is 100% solid because things change daily around here. I will break this rule and see how well you do with a tentative answer.

Currently slated for Publish 19 is some slicing loving. We are hoping to get a document posted to "In Dev" this week for you all to view. QA still needs to bang away at the slicing changes which could push it out another publish or two.

Tiggs, how about putting it on TC whatever state it is in, but not pushing it live till it is fixed. We did this for months with the LoS changes that sat on TC without going to live, we could start banging away at it and help QA out. A number of players on TC first came there to prepare for the smuggler revamp (myself included) and we would be happy to have a crack at it in the early state to help QA get this in the earliest patch possible.

TC doesn't just have to be for stuff that is absolutely ready for release, you could put stuff out early while it is finished, as I said LoS was an example, and so was the Entertainer Theatre Manager Quest that was on TC for a while before it went live (in an unfinished state where system messages and rewards weren't ready)

Ok, look.. I understand Veela's anger about not being trusted. But that's not even what this is about. When the newest, freshest, most reliable and ONLYinformation that we have comes from a conversation between one of our regulars and a dev at a fanfest/E3/c3/etc., then something is seriously wrong with the lines of communication. Trust shouldn't even be an issue. Somewhere along the line there should be some kind of hard data about where we're at. TH/Tiggs should have communicated (either directly or through Wes) what the plan is by now. Relying on "a guy I talked to at E3" is a horrible way to predict the future. No matter how reliable the information is.

TH and Tiggs get paid to COMMUNICATE. Not ignore. Announcing a total lack of information doesn't cut it either. Somewhere in the figurative office in which they work, development is happening. They know that. They probably also know where it's being directed. We shouldn't have to put good folks like Veela under the pressure of sneaking around, figuring out what that direction is when people are being paid to know and communicate it.

Then again, with all the misdirection in the past couple of years from On High, it's not like we'd trust TH/Tiggs either.

-Zz

I look at posts like this and realize it is a catch-22. When information was communicated in the past (before my time) everyone went wild. If that information missed the target or was removed then everyone was upset and the community felt the team was lying. This is why when I first started posting not only to this profession but to all, I stood firmly with if it is not 100% solid, I wouldn't post. Players were across the board on my posting that but for the most part many agreed that this would be a better route to take.

Our communication has been down lately with the following events hitting us from all sides: Celebration, Combat Upgrade, Rage of the Wookiee, E3 and Fan Fest. While these are not excuses the actuality of it all is releasing Combat Upgrade and RoW was like releasing two expansions at once. Something that no game has ever done.

We all learned some valuable lessons from doing two simultaneous releases and in the future our goal is to improve the communication flow so we don't run into that situation again.

Ramsey_Lanclo wrote:Fair enough... How about telling us _WHAT_ it is? There was an "In Concept" a couple months ago, but we've been told that it changed from that... How about letting us in on what's coming "soon"?

Ah. It's pretty neat. I'll recommend this for a Friday Feature when Tiggs stops by to yell at me for replying to a "PLEASE READ"-thread.

Ok, look.. I understand Veela's anger about not being trusted. But that's not even what this is about. When the newest, freshest, most reliable and ONLYinformation that we have comes from a conversation between one of our regulars and a dev at a fanfest/E3/c3/etc., then something is seriously wrong with the lines of communication. Trust shouldn't even be an issue. Somewhere along the line there should be some kind of hard data about where we're at. TH/Tiggs should have communicated (either directly or through Wes) what the plan is by now. Relying on "a guy I talked to at E3" is a horrible way to predict the future. No matter how reliable the information is.

TH and Tiggs get paid to COMMUNICATE. Not ignore. Announcing a total lack of information doesn't cut it either. Somewhere in the figurative office in which they work, development is happening. They know that. They probably also know where it's being directed. We shouldn't have to put good folks like Veela under the pressure of sneaking around, figuring out what that direction is when people are being paid to know and communicate it.

Then again, with all the misdirection in the past couple of years from On High, it's not like we'd trust TH/Tiggs either.

-Zz

I look at posts like this and realize it is a catch-22. When information was communicated in the past (before my time) everyone went wild. If that information missed the target or was removed then everyone was upset and the community felt the team was lying. This is why when I first started posting not only to this profession but to all, I stood firmly with if it is not 100% solid, I wouldn't post. Players were across the board on my posting that but for the most part many agreed that this would be a better route to take.

Our communication has been down lately with the following events hitting us from all sides: Celebration, Combat Upgrade, Rage of the Wookiee, E3 and Fan Fest. While these are not excuses the actuality of it all is releasing Combat Upgrade and RoW was like releasing two expansions at once. Something that no game has ever done.

We all learned some valuable lessons from doing two simultaneous releases and in the future our goal is to improve the communication flow so we don't run into that situation again.

Smugglers are mad and rightfully so...they have been promised loving for well over a year and instead of getting love the smuggler system get gutted and Jedi keep getting loving/fixes over smuggler and every other system in the game.

Keep in mind, once a dev finishes a project like that, he checks it in. It goes into our version control software ... and we have little control over when it will get to you. Sometimes the developer isn't even 100% sure which publish his change will be in: the next one, or the one after that?

At that point, it's in for an upcoming publish with a lot of other stuff. Any of that "other stuff" could delay the publish. Or we could hear back from QA, "We don't have time to test that properly, so let's hold it for the next publish and give ourselves time to test all this other stuff." Or this could delay the publish itself. Or we could discover other issues with it in testing that cause us to sit on it for another publish, and so on. Really, anything could happen.

Most of the time, nothing bad happens, we haven't scheduled anything that requires more QA time than QA can accommodate, and what we check-in arrives on Live servers when it's supposed to. But this is just not something we can promise, so we try not to do that.

This particular torpedo has left the tube, but we can't say when precisely it will make contact with the USS Smuggler.

"Soon".

Nice post, you know....an excellent friday feature would be to have a QA on how SOE acts. Pictures of your offices, how bugs get fixed. An example of the game in code... The processes for pushing features in a game, like the example above. Those would really do wonders for us....

FYI - It might be best to put the smuggler fixes on high priority

This is really a great suggestion (not the included of the game code part) and would wind up being a few Friday features. I can check on Monday to see what we can do for this.

I normally don't post anything unless it is 100% solid because things change daily around here. I will break this rule and see how well you do with a tentative answer.

Currently slated for Publish 19 is some slicing loving. We are hoping to get a document posted to "In Dev" this week for you all to view. QA still needs to bang away at the slicing changes which could push it out another publish or two.

Tiggs, how about putting it on TC whatever state it is in, but not pushing it live till it is fixed. We did this for months with the LoS changes that sat on TC without going to live, we could start banging away at it and help QA out. A number of players on TC first came there to prepare for the smuggler revamp (myself included) and we would be happy to have a crack at it in the early state to help QA get this in the earliest patch possible.

TC doesn't just have to be for stuff that is absolutely ready for release, you could put stuff out early while it is finished, as I said LoS was an example, and so was the Entertainer Theatre Manager Quest that was on TC for a while before it went live (in an unfinished state where system messages and rewards weren't ready)

We have to make sure internally that things work properly first. When anything is fixed or added to the game it is introduced and checked that it doesn't make things go haywire. Then it is sent out to TC.

I think this is good enough info for me and I recommend a cool tone when SOE posts in our threads (I read a few above that read back to Tiggs like they were responding instead to their dirty little brother, ugh).

We have to make sure internally that things work properly first. When anything is fixed or added to the game it is introduced and checked that it doesn't make things go haywire. Then it is sent out to TC.

I'm not saying zero check, after all the dev would have reviewed it, but given current TC patch has sent things "haywire" (have you tried harvesting anything on there?) and the track record of putting things on TC even though they aren't in the next patch (Theatre managers) why not?

All it would do is get you some free QA time from TC players and make things go quicker, not slower (and it could really help attract more people to TC, which is desperately in need of more people)

We have to make sure internally that things work properly first. When anything is fixed or added to the game it is introduced and checked that it doesn't make things go haywire. Then it is sent out to TC.

I'm not saying zero check, after all the dev would have reviewed it, but given current TC patch has sent things "haywire" (have you tried harvesting anything on there?) and the track record of putting things on TC even though they aren't in the next patch (Theatre managers) why not?

All it would do is get you some free QA time from TC players and make things go quicker, not slower (and it could really help attract more people to TC, which is desperately in need of more people)